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Thursday, January 1, 2015

Review of 2014

I am still far from being a regular blogger (and I have no issue with that), but I have at last broken the trend of increasingly shirking the blog with each passing year. On the other hand, I posted significantly less on the Tumblr in 2014 than in 2013. (There was, in fact, a greater absolute number of posts on the Tumblr last year, but the average concentration of posts per month was far lower.) This was, at least in part, due to the fact that I was working on a story arc for the comic over the summer months, something I have not done since the first year of this blog. The basic concept for that story had been drifting in my mind for at least a couple years, so it was good to get it out of my system. While that translated to my falling behind on answering Tumblr questions, it was also an important contributor to last year's increased post count on here. Circumstances permitting, there is more to come.

In retrospect, I did quite a large amount of traveling over the past year (to New York, Arizona, Tokyo, and Ohio), which further added to the blog post boost. In spite of long periods of stagnation on the comic (per usual), I continued to receive fanart, for which I am immensely grateful. Last but not least, I did not forget about April Fools'.

In March, great tits were reported to deliberately withhold information from competitors. The mechanisms of color production in the plumage of male Lawes's parotia were described. Retaliatory behaviors by avian brood parasites were found to be promoted by plastic defensive behavior in their hosts. Another study showed that there are circumstances under which a host can benefit from brood parasites. The reconstruction of colors from fossilized pigments that has been a growing field these past few years was questioned, suggesting that supposed fossil pigments are really traces of bacteria. There were multiple presentations on both sides of this controversy at the SVP conference later in the year, so little doubt there will be much more to say about this subject in the near future. New studies came out on the phylogenetic position of the spotted wren babbler, causal understanding in New Caledonian crows, and the extinction of moas. Newly-named maniraptors included the Pliocene penguin Eudyptes calauina and the long-awaited large caenagnathid Anzu wyliei, too late for the oviraptorosaur-heavy 2013 but very much welcome.

In July, an excellent new specimen of Archaeopteryx was described. (This paper additionally coined the name Pennaraptora for the least inclusive clade containing oviraptorosaurs and paravians, a term we had been sorely in need of.) Anatomicalchange through ontogeny in chickens was documented in detail. Ichthyornis was reported from Mexico for the first time. New material of Itemirus was described, supporting the idea that it was a dromaeosaurid, though skepticism exists about this assignment and conclusion. New material representing very large specimens was also described for Palaeeudyptes. The oldest known avian eggshell, hailing from the Early Cretaceous, was reported. New studies came out on the wing dynamics and efficacy of hovering hummingbirds, the vocal repertoire of African penguins, and the evolution of the modern avian tail. Newly-named maniraptors included the pelagornithid Pelagornis sandersi (one of the largest known flying birds), the microraptorian Changyuraptor yangi, and the Miocene duck Bambolinetta lignitifila (formerly a species of Anas), while the Miocene stem albatross Chenornis was sunk into Plotornis.